8 Signs Bath Salts Will Turn You into the Hulk

And you don’t want to be the incredible hulk

UPDATE: The AP is now reporting that a toxicology report failed to find the most commonly known components of bath salts in the body of the man mentioned below. But I already wrote this whole thing. So take everything to come with a grain of salt. (Just not bath salt.)

A few days ago, a naked Miami man ate a homeless guy’s face off. Authorities suspect the alleged cannibal was tripping on bath salts – a synthetic drug that may or may not turn you into a frothing creature of unrepentant wrath.

Of course, bath salts aren’t truly designed to go with a glass of wine and a soak in the tub. (Though taking them is about as bat-shit as liking Fifty Shades of Grey). But that’s how they’re marketed. And it’s why the Drug Enforcement Administration has had such a hard time targeting them.

Bath salts cause agitation, hallucinations, seizures, paranoia and the following uncanny resemblances to the Incredible Hulk that – for the sake of the general population – can no longer be ignored.

8. Loss of Clothing

You wouldn’t like Bruce Banner when he gets angry – because the guy’s always popping his shirt off at parties. Unfortunately, it’s the same schtick with salties* due to an intense uptick in body temperature. According to the president of the Miami Fraternal Order of Police, “They are burning up from the inside. Their organs are reaching a level that most would die.”

(For the clarity of this post, we must resist the urge to compare salties to Jersey Shore characters – despite the prevalence of near organ failure and routinely bursting out of wardrobe.)

7. Unstoppable Rage

It’s no secret that the dude blasting his nips is also irrationally angry at all times.

For Hulk, this meant self-renewing power. (“The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets!”) But for the salties, it usually means charging into traffic, beating their spouses and savagely murdering their families.

6. Heightened Fight or Flight Reflex

Here are the Sparknotes for many a Hulk battle: Banner tries to avoid conflict. When he can’t, he transmogrifies into the Hulk, who also tries to vacate the area. Still threatened, Hulk is forced to throw a tantrum (and a few military vehicles) before bounding away to an undisclosed wilderness area where he is able to regain his human form through fly-fishing or some such.

While salties seem to skew towards the Fight-to-the-Death side of the spectrum, they are actually experiencing Fight or Flight-like chemical processes. According to the excellent Natalie Wolchover, “The salts work by putting the brain’s survival instincts into overdrive, essentially causing an extreme adrenaline rush that lasts for hours rather than moments.”

It’s kind of like the Hunger Games. Except instead of a dystopian future where you battle amongst the lower classes in a winner-take-all game of survival, you live in Miami. And it’s Saturday afternoon.

5. Superhuman Strength

Point: The Hulk once jumped in a river of lava and pulled an alien planet’s tectonic plates back together in order to save it.

Counterpoint: It took four police officers and two orderlies to hold down “a very violent… small female” on bath salts. And that’s after she was Tasered.

4. Total Disregard for Life

Remember that one time we all got drunk, dressed up in lingerie and murdered my neighbor’s pet pygmy goat?

(Note: Superheroes often avoid killing their enemies. Not Hulk. The version of him that appears in The Ultimates is shown “willfully murdering hundreds of people, and in some cases…” well, we’ll get to that in #1.)

3. Extreme Paranoia

Hulk is always looking over his shoulder for “the government” and “the authorities” and “the army.” Of course, they’re likely after him for all the reasons on this list. But for an indestructible monster, the guy sure can be a bit of a Nervous Nellie.

It’s the same with salties. Sometimes they shoot at houses because they hear voices. Other times they cut into their skin hundreds of times looking for bugs and wires. And if piling furniture against the door doesn’t make them feel safe, salties make the next logical leap – like breaking into a monastery and stabbing, then bludgeoning, a priest.

2. Impervious to Harm, Bullets

If ever you should find a salty gnawing on the neck of a homeless man – who is still alive, by the way – do as the Miami Police did. First, ask the salty to “get off.” At this point, should the fine young cannibal look up at you with a piece of flesh still in his teeth and growl, feel free to go America all over his ass.

1. The Hunger

I know. When you heard about a face-eating, your first thought was zombies. But the Hulk has eaten his share of human flesh. In fact, there was a whole series entitled “Marvel Zombies” where all your favorite heroes and villains ran around eating each other.

Think that’s absurd? Clearly you’ve never heard of the Marvel universe where the gang is a bunch of animals and Hulk-Bunny joins the likes of Captain Americat and Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham.